Taijun Waters, freshman video production major, thought the new look was more appealing, smoother and professional than the last site. He said the old website was “a little blocky.” He also said a website’s appearance can influence a potential student’s decision to attend the university. Waters said he paid attention to websites during his own college search.
“I would judge whether or not I would want to go to your college based on your website,” Waters said.
Patrick Powers, director of digital marketing and communications, said the new website was met with positive comments. He also said the location of connections, quick links and directory were three things he was regularly asked about.
Eric Humphrey, freshman music composition major, suggested a tutorial for the new site. He said he had a difficult time finding the connections link and the directory when he first used the site.
“The only thing is they changed a lot of stuff around and it kind of threw me off,” Humphrey said.
Gabe Beckerle, freshman film production major, said there was something about the lighting that made the site more comfortable. Humphrey said the new site is more user-friendly and easier on the eyes.
The focus of the site was primarily for prospective and current students, even though it does serve faculty and staff, Powers said.
“Our main focus was and will continue to be to best reflect who we are as an institution, to reflect an institution that prepares students and transforms them for global citizenship and individual excellence,” Powers said. “We really tried to capture that in the site design. We worked with a design firm that mocked up the concepts and sent those concepts out for review, and that’s where we got 1,700 responses from students, staff, faculty and alums, all offering feedback on what spoke to them.”
There are new aspects to the site that weren’t available to users before. Quick links are now called A-Z. They are located in the blue bar across the bottom of the site along with the connections and directory links.
If a page was to be collapsed, it would show the website as one would see it on an iPad, smartphone or desktop. Once some links from the new site are clicked, it resorts back to the old website. This, Powers said, will change in the next two weeks.
Powers said there will be some new additions to the website. The creators of the website will implement a new location finder where users can type in their ZIP code to find the nearest Webster campus. They will also work on a dynamic program finder where a person can search for a class at a specific Webster campus.
Powers said this would take place in the upcoming weeks. He said feedback from students, faculty and staff is important in order to continue to improve the website.
“We love to get feedback,” Powers said. “We want to hear what students say, positive or negative. At the bottom of every page there is a ‘submit website feedback’ button, so we encourage people to send us stuff, let us know what works and what doesn’t work for you.”
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